Five!

 Yesterday Maren turned five years old. We were not quite sure how to celebrate given the current pandemic situation. We thought a lot about it and decided to invite her kindergarten class. We figured that she is already exposed to those kids so it doesn’t really add any risk. But in thinking about how to be safe we decided to specifically not invite parents, to wear masks the whole time, to purchase cupcakes from a bakery and have individual juice boxes, and to have the party outside.

Well. Things didn’t go exactly as we had hoped. First, Maren’s teacher didn’t get back to us right away regarding distributing invitations. Apparently she had to check with the principal to make sure it was all right. Then the invitations had to be brought to school and left for three days before being sent home with the kids. But Maren only goes to school twice a week so there was a long delay between getting the invitations to school and getting them back to parents. In the end invitations went home on Tuesday and the party was on Saturday, so people didn’t have much time to plan or RSVP. Only three kids were able to make it, but that was much better than the zero we worried would be able to come. 

Then there was the weather. It was predicted to be sunny and warm, then sunny and relatively warm, and by Thursday night it was predicted to rain. So our plans for an outdoor party did not come to fruition. We decided that since so few kids would be coming anyway it wouldn’t be too big a risk to have it indoors. In the end it didn’t actually rain during the party but it was chilly. The kids went outside to play for a little while but got too cold and came back in (one of the guests was wearing a tank top dress and no socks and did not have a jacket with her so even though it wasn’t that cold they couldn’t stay out for very long). We were able to keep them pretty well distanced while they were eating their individual cupcakes, and their games consisted mostly of running and screaming so they kept a decent distance from one another then too. I think we did all right. 

All in all the birthday party was kind of a normal five-year-old birthday party. Balloons, freeze dance, music, screaming, running, cake. Maren will probably just remember this as a birthday party, not a pandemic birthday party, which is good I think. Happy birthday Maren! We love you ❤️